Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe Country Guide was produced by the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) and the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA)

The Country Guide is a compilation of publicly available information from international institutions, local NGOs, governmental agencies, businesses, media and universities, among others. International and domestic sources are identified on the basis of their expertise and relevance to the Zimbabwean context, as well as their timeliness and impartiality.

The initial survey of publicly available, international sources was carried out by DIHR and ZELA from January to December 2013. The draft was consulted through a series of multi-stakeholder forums held in Harare throughout 2013 and 2014, and published in December 2014. The current draft was updated in March 2016.

The completed Country Guide aims to provide a comprehensive overview, on the basis of the information available, of the ways in which companies do or may impact human rights in Zimbabwe. The current Country Guide is not meant as an end product, or a final determination of country conditions. It is intended to be the basis, and the beginning, of a process of dissemination, uptake and modification. DIHR and ZELA seek further engagement with local stakeholders, and intend to update the Country Guide on that basis.

News Feed

8 Aug 2017 — "Zimbabwe: Gunfire At Chiadzwa...One Person Killed, Three Seriously Injured", 25 July 2017
One person was killed, while three others were seriously injured when Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) Private Limited security guards fired at over 200 armed illegal diamond panners who broke into the firm's premises in Chiadzwa last week... ZCDC chief executive officer Dr Moris Mpofu said the company's security department was working with the police over the case...It is alleged that illegal panners cut the security fence around the Red Zone of Portal A diamond mining area at the plant..."The security guards ordered them to leave the mining site, but they resisted and threw stones at them. One of the guards fired three warning shots in the air in a bid to disperse the illegal panners but they kept on marching towards the sorting room...Upon realising that they were now under fierce attack, the eight security guards started firing towards the advancing illegal panners," said a source...

1 Aug 2017 — "Loss-making Air Zimbabwe cuts half of its workforce", 17 Jul 2017
200 Air Zimbabwe workers to lose jobs in the fourth layoff due to mismanagement, high operating costs, old aircraft and equipment. Chairwoman of the loss-making Air Zimbabwe Chipo Dyanda says the airline is cutting half of its 400 jobs as part of a restructuring plan to revive the ailing national carrier. The airline has been hit with numerous losses for years due to mismanagement, high operating costs, old aircraft and equipment. Dyanda explains that Air Zimbabwe would cut 200 jobs in its fourth round of layoffs in eight years.“We were overstaffed by a lot and we are also trying to weed out people without the right qualifications. The retrenchment is meant to give space to the airline so that we can redeploy the money saved back into the company” In August 2015, Air Zimbabwe cut 300 jobs as well as in 2009 and 2013.

18 Jul 2017 — In 2016, at least 200 land and environmental defenders were murdered – the deadliest year on record. Not only is this trend growing, it’s spreading – killings were dispersed across 24 countries, compared to 16 in 2015. With many killings unreported, and even less investigated, it is likely that the true number is actually far higher... This tide of violence is driven by an intensifying fight for land and natural resources, as mining, logging, hydro-electric and agricultural companies trample on people and the environment in their pursuit of profit. As more and more extractive projects were imposed on communities, many of those who dared to speak out and defend their rights were brutally silenced...[G]lobally, governments and companies are failing in their duty to protect activists at risk...Investors, too, are fuelling the violence by backing projects that trash the environment and trample human rights... [They] are failing to tackle the main root cause of the attacks: the imposition of projects on communities without their free, prior and informed consent...Criminalisation tends to be used as a tactic when governments and business collude to prioritise shortterm profit over sustainable development. Over the course of 2015 and 2016 the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre documented at least 134 criminalisation cases of this type.

12 Jul 2017 — "Caledonia Mining reports fatality at Blanket gold mine in Zimbabwe", 11 July 2017
The accident occurred in number 6 shaft area of the Blanket gold mine. Management has notified the Minister of Mines and Mining Development and the Inspector of Mines and will provide all the necessary assistance to the Ministry of Mines Inspectorate Department in its enquiry into this incident..."We take the safety of our employees very seriously at Blanket gold mine so we are very disappointed with this fatality,” says Caledonia Mining CEO, Steve Curtis...

27 May 2017 — "8 feared dead in Mazowe mine collapse", 24 May 2017
Eight small scale miners are feared dead after a mine shaft collapsed in Masasa area in Mazowe on Monday night. Four people are said to have been underground at the time of the incident, while four others who were resting outside were also sucked in...When the ZBC News visited the site, people who include emergency services personnel were milling around as rescue efforts were deemed dangerous without the necessary equipment.

8 May 2017 — This pilot study provides a barometer of mineral governance in ten Southern African countries: Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The barometer takes stock of mining regulations in place at the end of 2015, the extent to which they are implemented, and features of supporting institutions. It is based on the observation that while regulations impose obligations on mining companies, in doing so they directly impose obligations on the state to monitor and enforce compliance, and they also indirectly impose obligations for citizens and civil society to hold the state and mining companies accountable. The barometer includes indicators of mineral governance across four main issue-areas: national economic and fiscal linkages; community impact; labour, and the environment, with artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) treated as a special topic. The barometer also includes indicators of state capacity and state accountability with respect to mineral governance...

24 Apr 2017 — "Gold fever leaves trail of destruction in Zimbabwe", 17 April 2017
Thousands of unemployed Zimbabweans have turned to illegal gold panning in a bid to survive the country's deteriorating economy, leaving a trail of destruction that has alarmed farmers, timber plantation owners and the country's environmental authorities....Deep tunnels have been dug beneath roads, railways and buildings in the Kwekwe area of the Midlands province. In some parts of Manicaland province, waterways have been diverted and roads destroyed...In Tarka Forest, a timber estate owned by Allied Timbers in Chimanimani district, more than 600 hectares of prime timber have been damaged to make way for the illegal digs, according to company executives. Manicaland's minister of provincial affairs, Mandi Chimene, said in February that illegal gold mining in Tarka Forest had reached "alarming levels", and resulted in the pollution of streams and rivers, and destruction of standing timber. "What is happening in Tarka (Forest) is shocking," Chimene said. "We wonder who is benefiting from the illegal gold because as a country, we are not. Such gold is not going to the legal market."

4 Apr 2017 — "Diamonds are not all girls' best friends", 3 April 2017
Since the discovery of diamonds in Marange around 2006, reports by non-governmental organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Global Witness have exposed rights abuses and violations by both private security companies hired by mining companies in Marange as well as Zimbabwean army, police and Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) operatives. During a workshop held end of 2016 in Mutare, the capital city of Manicaland, more than 40 participants, men and women, shared touching experiences of how they have suffered human rights abuses at the hands of the diamond mining companies that mined in Marange before the government took over the fields early 2016. The Zimbabwe government forcibly merged all diamond operations in Marange to form the state-owned Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC). From testimonies given, it is clear that the situation has not improved, but worsening instead, since ZCDC took over the diamond mining fields...Three women walking with five children shared their experience of mining literally taking place in their backyard. One of them raised issues regarding health. “We suffer because of the dust and the noise. Mining operations are just where our crop garden used to be”, she complains...